I have a Dell 2950 with a Perc 5/i Raid controller that we've already installed Nexentastor 3 Community Edition on. We setup a raid-10 array that and put a ZFS pool on top of the hardware. As I understand, in this configuration ZFS/Nexentastor will not be able to tell when a disk fails in the array. Obviously, this is not optimal.

Since the Dell Perc 5/i controller is a rebranded LSI controller, you should be able to use the MegaCli utility to manage the array and monitor its condition. I had seen in a separate forum that the Perc 5/i is very similar to the LSI MegaRAID 8480E, so I tried installing the MegaCli utility at the link below. However, I have not been able to successfully install the utility.

Your paste doesn't actually show it failing to do the job. You have to understand that Nexenta may be a Solaris kernel, but it doesn't use Solaris PACKAGES (.pkg files). Instead, when you do pkgadd on Nexenta, it is running a script that rips that .pkg apart and attempts to create a .deb out of it, then install the .deb. The last line of your paste seems to indicate it was attempting to do so. Did it fail later than shown in this paste?
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Nex7Mar 20 '12 at 6:58

There is no other output on screen after trying the pkgadd. I've add above what is in /var/logs/dpkg.log, but I noticed there is no /opt/MegaRAID folder like there's supposed to be after installation.
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Peter ValadezMar 24 '12 at 1:22

1 Answer
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Since I haven't gotten anywhere trying to monitor the condition of the PERC 5i with MegaCLI in Nexentastor (I also tried Dell's Openmanage software but they don't have a version for Solaris), I've since installed a Dell SAS 6/ir controller in the 2950. This allows Nexentastor to see the disks individually in JBOD mode, and therefore Nexentastor can directly monitor the condition of each disk and the array.

I had seen on some other forums that you had to flash the firmware on the SAS 6/ir in order for it to support JBOD mode. But I just didn't create any raid arrays in the 6/ir bios setup, and Nexentastor saw all the disks individually. So it seems that the SAS 6/ir does support JBOD with the stock firmware- there just isn't an option that says "JBOD" in the bios setup.

Technically everyone may not consider this exactly an answer to the question asked, but I think it is ultimately the best way to address the problem of not being able to monitor the condition of raid arrays created by Dell Perc controllers in Nexentastor/Opensolaris. And as I was able to find two SAS 6/ir cards on Ebay for $30 each, this seems to be the best way to avoid having to use third party software to monitor the raid condition. Also, JBOD is the preferred way to present disks to Nexentastor/Solaris anyway.

However, I know I’ve seen many others say they are using Perc controllers with Nexentastor, so some insight into how to install MegaCLI on Nexenta would definitely be welcome.